Sunday, June 15, 2014

When I was rebuilding the gxv120 on my honda hr214 I found that the breather hose was broken and missing after checking for the part at boats.net, it turned out that the part i needed had been superseded a few times, and was no longer available. Damn!

Happily, when I was on ebay the other day I ran a search for the part number and found 4 NOS parts, still in their original wrapping! Here are some before and after pictures of the install (look how much oil was seeping from the old, broken hose!) and pictures of the part itself for anybody who is looking for honda part #04102-ze6-000.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

One of the things that has always bothered me about my hr214 is the handle wobbled a little bit, especially when I would push down on it to take pivot the mower around turns. After a little investigation, I found out that the pin on the handle stay (the bracket that attaches the handle to the deck) had broken off, causing the loose fit.

At the same time that I figured that out, I had also seen somebody on the MTF forms say that you could add commercial handle braces to the hr214 and that it would make a big improvement. Long story short, I went ahead and bought the commercial braces, along with the handle stay.

So did it get rid of the wobble? Absolutely! The handle feels like its carved out of rock, and is completely stable while i'm walking behind the mower. In retrospect, I'm not sure if the handle braces were necessary, or the stay itself would have done as good a job, but I think with the braces in place the handle stay won't brake again.

Here is what the new stay looks like. Not chrome, but functionally identical.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

She lives! After 3 months of tear downs, repairs, lots of parts and poring over the official honda manual, my little Hr214 started up on the second try. Pretty sweet-see the video below:

So whats next?

The Gxv120 surges when its cold. I'd imagine its a carb issue, but will have to check it out next weekend when I have some time.

The hr214 transmission should be checked over for fluid level (apparently the seals on each end of the axel can go bad...since I don't see any leaks I would guess that I'm either A-OK, or I'm so out of fluid and its about to fail =P

Check the valve adjustments-I have more power, at less RPM, than before the tear down, but want to make sure the adjustments are good after a couple of uses

Repair the handle where it meets the deck; maybe add the commercial handle braces that I've seen in the parts catalogue....

Sunday, June 3, 2012

First off, all credit to my wife for solving the mystery part issue! Turns out the plastic piece is part of the flow of oil from the head back to the crank case...thats what I get for not taking enough pictures while i disassembled it!

So the motor is back together, and even sitting on the deck right now-sweet! Reassembly notes for those that come after me...

Head-I didn't put in new valve guides, but I did get some Valve Paste
in my last parts order from Amazon and did a valve job. According to the internet, the valve seats should be a dull grey, and mine were, so I think I'm OK there. There was a very small amount of back-and-forth detectible in the valve guides when you wiggled the stems, but I'm going to leave it for now. I just can't find any examples of this motor having that sort of issue, and the stems were in spec as well.

Carb-Follow the video on the resources page! These carbs are really, really simple, and it looks like the key is cleanliness. Honestly, I probably didn't even have to take the carb apart, and I probably wouldn't again unless I suspected there was some kind of issue. I discovered the miracle of carb cleaner for the first time...and quickly discovered that I should be wearing rubber gloves when I use this stuff.

BBC- You're going to have to use the Strap Wrench
again to hold the flywheel still while getting the Blade Brake Clutch back together. After the engine is on the deck and torqued down, sit the mower on its side on a pair of saw horse to make things easier.

Misc- Pay attention to the routing of the wires, they should be kept away from the cylinder head and exhaust. Take time to re-grease the drive shaft, and line the hole up as described in the manual.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Boats.net came through on my Honda parts a little more than a week after ordering them. Not bad, and they really did seem to have the lowest prices. So today I picked up some assembly lube, a piston ring compressor, a 3/8ths torque wrench and went to work. First came putting the piston back into the cylinder-not too bad a job, just be VERY careful to align the rings with the mark facing "up." My mark was a "N" instead of a "T" but I think I got it right.

Next was the crankshaft (lube it up, drop it in the bearing) and the the connecting rod cap. When you tighten the connecting rod bolts, make sure you are using a torque wrench! The space you have to work in is really tight so I actually went and picked up a new one for the occasion. The sears store only had a 3/8ths drive, but a 1/4" probably would have worked even better if I had thought ahead and ordered it online.

After the crankshaft and piston are back together, move on to the camshaft. Make sure the dots line up, the lifters are back in their slots, and drop it in. I didn't mark the lifters as I took them out...but they appear to have no wear and be identical.

So far so good...until I found a mystery part! Shit, I hate it when that happens! Here is a picture of the little sucker:

This little guy shows up in the parts sheet on boats.net as a "pipe, oil defense" in the cylinder head parts diagram. Unfortunately, it shows up nowhere in the manual, and in the parts diagram it is off in the corner by itself...no clue to where in the cylinder head it lives. Hmmm...so dear readers, anybody know where things thing goes?

Sunday, April 29, 2012

After I got the gxv120 cylinder honed I began to have doubts that the cylinder was still within spec. After all, this engine is pushing 30 years old (!), and was running super high revolutions when the tear-down began. So I decided to do some rough measurements with a telescopic bore gauge and calipers that I borrowed from a friend. Luckily the hr214 shop manual had the specs for the bore, and after taking some measurements it looks like my bore has about .05mm of wear, but is still well within spec. If anybody wants to do a tear down on one of these hondas and take the measurements, you need to take your time and do multiple measurements. I followed the directions from the video below:

Like Jaf says in the video, the dial bore gauge is the best solution if you're building a serious engine, but for a lawnmower engine that is measuring so far below tolerance with the telescoping bore gauge set, I think I'm fine. I ordered some parts from boats.net too...hopefully next week the rebuild will start.